The Times Journal of the Australian Association of Time Table Collectors (ISSN 0813-6327) Print Publication No: 349069/00070 RRP $2.50 May, 2000 Issue No. 194 (Vol. 17 No.5) The Great Lithgow Zig Zag: it had only 2 daggers Hawkesbury River, where the three daggers first appeared The year of the three daggers
The Times May 2000 2 No 194 THE YEAR OF THE THREE DAGGERS 3 RAILWAY TIMETABLES OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA 11 A CREDENCE OF TIMETABLE AND ADVERTISING GRAPHICS 13 PIGEONS AND OTHER EOTICA 14 TAI-BUS SERVICES 15 GRAPHIC INSIGHT 16 The Times About The Times The Times on-line Editor Editorial Team Contacting the Editor The Times is published monthly by the Australian Association of Time Table Collectors (AATTC) as our journal, covering historic and general items. Current news items are published in our other journal, Table Talk. AATTC's home page: http://www.aattc.org.au Geoff Lambert Victor Isaacs, Duncan MacAuslan. The Times welcomes articles and mail and will be pleased to receive yours. Please send articles and letters to Geoff Lambert, 179 Sydney Rd FAIRLIGHT NSW 2094 Email: G.Lambert@unsw.edu.au Phone 61 2 9949 3521; Fax 61 2 9948 7862 How to submit copy Submit paper manuscripts or word-processor files (MS Word preferred) on disk or via e- mail. Illustrations should be submitted as clean sharp photocopies on white paper or scanned GIF format images with at least 300dpi resolution on disk or via e-mail. Editorial deadlines Subscriptions Reproduction Disclaimer Contributions should reach the editor by the first day of the month preceding the date of publication. Membership of AATTC is $30 and includes subscriptions to both The Times and Table Talk. Individual copies of both journals are available at $2.50 per copy from the Railfan Shop in Victoria and the ARHS bookshop in Sydney. Material appearing in The Times or Table Talk may be reproduced in other publications, provided acknowledgment is made of the author and includes the words The Times, journal of the Australian Association of Time Table Collectors. A copy of the publication which includes the reference must be sent to the editor. Opinions expressed in The Times are not necessarily those of the Association or its members. We welcome a broad range of views on timetabling matters. AATTC Who s who President Duncan MacAuslan 1a Cheltenham St ROZELLE NSW 2039 (02) 9555 2667 0411 236 225 Vice-President Chris Brownbill 37 Grange Rd BLACKBURN SOUTH Vic 3130 (03)9803-2880 Secretary Glen Cumming 19 Peace St GLEN IRIS Vic 3146 (03) 9885-8546 Treasurer David Cranney PO Box 1657 TUGGERANONG ACT 2901 (02) 6294-2129 Auctioneer Mark Peterson 43 Granault Pde CORIO Vic 3214 (03) 5275-5384 Distribution Officer Victor Isaacs PO Box E383 KINGSTON ACT 2604 (02) 6257-1742 Editor, The Times Geoff Lambert 179 Sydney Rd FAIRLIGHT 2094 (02) 9949 3521 Editor, Table Talk Albert Isaacs Unit 5, Whitehall, 22 Burwood Rd HAWTHORN Vic 3122 (03) 9819-5080 Membership Officer Stephen Ward 184 Karingal Drive FRANKSTON Vic 3190 (03) 9789-2263 Production Manager Graeme Cleak PO Box 315 NUNAWADING Vic 3131 (03) 9877-4130 Promotions Officer Vacant Committee member Derek Cheng 34 Orchard Rd BEECROFT NSW 2109 (02) 9614-1918, 0416-182970 Committee member Graham Duffin P.O. Box 74, Brisbane Roma St. Qld 4003 (07) 3275-1833 Adelaide Convenor Robert Field 136 Old Mt Barker Rd STIRLING SA 5152 (08) 8339-2065 Brisbane Convenor Dennis McLean 53 Barge St ARANA HILLS Qld 4054 (07) 3351-6496 Canberra Convenor Ian Cooper GPO Box 1533 CANBERRA ACT 2601 (02) 6254-2431 Melbourne Convenor Albert Isaacs Unit 5, Whitehall, 22 Burwood Rd HAWTHORN Vic 3122 (03) 9819-5080 Sydney Convenor Robert Henderson 16 Cowrang Ave TERREY HILLS NSW 2084 (02) 9486-3828
The Times May 2000 3 No 194 The year of the three daggers This is not a Sherlock Holmes mystery, although it is set in the year that Sherlock Holmes first sprang from the mind of Conan Doyle. No, it marks the first appearance in a NSW Working Time Table of the now-familiar three-daggers symbol ( ), signifying the use of electric staff as a safeworking system. This was in 1891 and, like some other things I (GEOFF LAMBERT) have written about in these pages, it can be laid at the feet of the NSW Railway Commissioner. Afew years ago, I happened to stumble on a rare find in a second-hand bookshop - a complete leather-bound marbleboarded set of 1891 NSWGR Working Timetables. The volume contained 18 working timetables: 5 Western Division, 3 Southern, 5 Northern and 5 Main and Illawarra. This was a year of great transition for the NSW Railways and the changes involved can be clearly seen in the pages of the time table. Eddies in the railway world The reason for all this change was Mr Edward Eddy, a real whirlwind of a Commissioner imported from the U.K. in 1888 to run the railways. Mr Eddy (Eddie Eddy?) learned his railway trade mostly in the London and North Western railway under such luminaries as George Findlay and George Neele. The LNWR boosted itself, with some justification, as The Premier Line and it was at the forefront in many operating practices. Eddy brought the LNWR attitude to operations with him and began to stamp them on the NSWR from the earliest days of his appointment. Most notable among Eddy s operational changes were the extension of double track, the regrading of many steep lines, the introduction of much more powerful locomotives, the upgrading of the NSWR rule book and the installation of more modern safeworking methods. Tradition A railway employee of 1970, spotting one of my 1891 WTTs lying on the table would have recognised it for what it was in a fraction of a second. The style, layout, content and even the colours of the covers had already been fixed by 1891 and were to remain fixed for another three-quarters of a century. Our Figure 1 shows the title page/cover of the Western Division WTT for 1891 and another one for 1960. Even the printer s marks at the foot of the page are the same. The NSW Railways were Australia s "Premier Line" as far as the issue of paper bumf was concerned, rivalling the world master, the Great Western Railway. With rule book Appendices running to eight volumes, enormously detailed WTT instructions and a host of supplementary books, a complete set amounted to over 6,000 pages and took up three quarters of a metre of shelf space in the Traffic Manager's office. The 1891 volume of Working Time Tables marks the first appearance of what was to grow almost beyond limit. While the January WTTs get right down to business with train times commencing from page 1 of every district's volume, the next issues, in June, each contain several pages of detailed instructions preceding the train times. By the time of the 1960 timetables, you had to read as far as page 45 before you could find train times. Doubling the Southern line During 1891, at least three South and Branches Working Time Tables were issued (1 Jan, 1 Aug, 7 Sep). There may have been more, but only these three survive in my bound volume. On New Year s Eve 1890, the single line between Granville and Merrylands was duplicated- triplicated really, because a relief line was provided also. South of Merrylands, the line remained single all the way to Albury. This was the night before the currency of the new WTT and it is perhaps not surprising that the WTT, obviously already printed at this time, still shows single line all the way from Granville. Our first timetable page (Figure 2), from 1 Jan 1891 shows the safeworking sections and stations at this date, with the morning train service. All of the crossing stations experienced at least one cross during the morning. Staff and Ticket was in use between Granville and Campbelltown, with Electric Tablet beyond. My prime source for duplication dates for the South line comes from the NSWGR publication, Main Southern Line Maps". This may or not be reliable, as it conflicts somewhat with the entries in the WTT. In the 7 months that elapsed between January and August, the several single line sections were duplicated as in the box overleaf. By August 1, the date of the new WTT, the line was in a patchwork state between Granville and Picton, with several isolated single line sections. The WTT shows double line ending at Liverpool, as shown in our Figure 3. New stations and safeworking places have appeared, daggers have come and gone, a ballast siding near Picton is busy supplying the new works. It is hard to tell from such a table where safeworking methods began and ended- two stations each having a dagger might in fact be joined by a double line, the daggers applying to the sections on the other side. Any trains passing on double track?
The Times May 2000 4 No 194 Way out West No 15 calls at Parramatta to pick up a newsboy was an unusual piece of information to be found in the August 1891 West and branches WTT. No 15 was a goods, passing through Parramatta at 4.15 a.m. What the newsboy was doing on such a train at such a hour is not explained, presumably going to Penrith to sell papers, or perhaps to join an early morning Up train somewhere. The timetable does not say where he was spat out. No 15 is in our Figure 4, along with 16 other trains scheduled between Penrith and Wallerawang in the mornings. Train 23 in this table, the morning s first mountain passenger train was one of 6 Down and 6 Up trains which later in the year were said to call at Numantia when required to pick up or set down Mr Clift or members of his family only. But where is Numantia? And who was Mr Clift? Numantia, between Faulconbridge and Linden, had been opened as a private siding for Sir James Martin, who intended to build a house there. But it later became a public siding when he didn t go ahead with the house. It was closed in the middle of our year of study and disappeared from the WTT, but reappeared with its instructions regarding the especiallyfavoured Mr Clift in the September issue. Hence its temporary absence in our Figure 4. Mr Clift remains a mystery. Trains 11 and 27 on this page were 2 of 7 trains on the line which the Working Time Table said run double between Penrith and Katoomba. What this meant is not clear. Both trains had "bank engines" over the same length of line, and this is perhaps what is meant. By 1892, the WTT was using the term "push-up engines" to describe them. These bank engines were meant to return on the schedule of two conditional Up trains No 2A and 14 or, if the latter were actually running on the day, attached to these trains, or as a division of these trains. The other 5 push-up engines ran attached to their Down trains right through to Mt Victoria, where they were detached and then took forward mineral (coal) trains to Eskbank, three of which, Nos 3, 7 and Section Starts (miles) Duplicated Merrylands-Guildford 14.58 4-Feb-91 Guildford-Fairfield 16.00 16-Mar-91 Fairfield-Canley Vale 18.01 26-Mar-91 Canley Vale-Warwick Farm Jct 19.25 18-Jun-91 Warwick Farm Jct - Liverpool 21.23 26-Mar-91 Liverpool - Casula Temporary Jct 21.95 27-Mar-91 Casula Temporary Jct - Glenfield (2nd) 23.98 10-Jul-91 Leumeah - Campbelltown 32.69 6-Apr-91 Campbelltown - Glenlee Temporary Jct 34.00 1-Jun-91 Camden Jct (installed) 34.56 5-Jan-91 Douglas Park - Ballast Sdg 45.55 31-Jul-91 9 appear in the table shown. It s all very confusing. The famous Lithgow Zig Zag (cover), was about half-way through its working life at the time of our WTT and was still pretty much in the state it had been in when built, save that double line now extended from "Bottom Points to Bowenfels. Bottom Points, which was a train staff and ticket station, had been interlocked about 5 years previously, as had Top Points. The staff section was Clarence - Bottom Points in 1891, but as the Zig-Zag grew more elaborate and electric staff was introduced, a staff station was also introduced at Top Points. In 1891, trains could be divided for hauling up the grade of the Zig Zag, but the WTT does not explicitly show this, and nearly all of the trains shown in the WTT were given 25 minutes to run from Bottom Points to Clarence. The three daggers Tyer s electric train tablet had been invented in England in the 1870s and by the 1880s had reached the New South Wales Railways, where it persisted into the 1950s. Since its introduction, it had been symbolised in the pages of the Working Time Table by a pair of daggers. Electric Tablet did not meet with approval on the London and North Western the staff was the predominant L&NWR idea of single line working Mr Thompson, an assistant to the L&NWR s E.M.G. Eddy brought out a proposal for an electric train staff and this was tried and adopted by the L&NWR in 1887. Mr Webb also had a hand in it, of course. Eighteen months later, the L&NWR's Mr Eddy arrived in NSW, carrying the notion of electric staff with him. A dagger-free North Coast, North and Branches WTT had been issued on November 1st, but the three daggers signifying electric staff stations made their first appearance in the new issue a month later. Electric staff was introduced on the Morpeth branch on 26th November and the resulting timetable, in effect less than a week later, forms our Figure 5. The Morpeth branch was short, trains took only 8 minutes to traverse its 3 mile length and the service was provided by a single engine in steam. As the timetable shows, there could not possibly be any particular advantage of using electric staff on this line and it has come to be regarded as a trial installation. Despite the notion that Morpeth was the trial installation, it was preceded by 8 days by an installation on the Main North line. The line from Hornsby to Hawkesbury River had been opened in April 1887 and from then until the Hawkesbury River bridge was opened on 1st May 1889, passengers caught the ferry General Gordon to either Gosford or Mullet Creek and recommenced their train travel there. In November 1891, the line was single track, worked under staff and ticket regulations, with sections commencing at Ryde, continuing as far as Cockle Creek. Australia s first electric staff working was inserted into the middle of this length commencing with the two single line sections Hornsby-Cowan- Hawkesbury River (cover), beyond which there was then a short (and short-lived) double line section across the big bridge to a signal cabin variously named Mullet Creek, Hawkesbury Cabin and Wondabyne. The last name change for this cabin occurred during the currency of the 1 Jan 1891 WTT, my copy contains a neat ink alteration to this effect. By 1893, it had closed and only one of the two tracks on the bridge was actually in use, under electric staff working Hawkesbury
The Times May 2000 5 No 194 River - Wondabyne (a different Wondabyne). Actually, the December 1 1891 WTT seems confused about the introduction of electric staff, the first two pages of the main line table showing Staff and Ticket still in use over all sections, while later pages show Electric Staff between Hornsby and Hawkesbury River. Perhaps the first two pages were a typesetters error. In any event our Figure 6 shows a double page spread that has both versions, the three daggers making their first appearance on a main line on the right-hand page. This table has other interesting features, including a busy 5-way cross at Gosford in the mid-morning, where two expresses and 2 stopping trains meet one another and the pick-up goods. This pick-up goods takes 13 hours to go from Sydney to Newcastle. Note also the mixed train that runs only between Strathfield and Hornsby and the empty trucks trains with their many crossings and long waits. In column 35 appears a conditional Funeral Train. This was the return working of an empty train that ran from Newcastle to Adamstown, arriving back at Newcastle in time to be attached to or to a make a connection with the Newcastle-Sandgate funeral train. The WTT doesn t say how the passengers transferred, or why Adamstown was the origin of this lugubrious service.
The Times May 2000 6 No 194 Figure 2: The Main South line as it was at the start of 1891
The Times May 2000 7 No 194 Figure 3. The Main South Line as it was in August 1891
The Times May 2000 8 No 194 Figure 4: The Western Line in August 1891 - where has Numantia gone?
The Times May 2000 9 No 194 Figure 5. Morpeth in December 1891: electric staff was wasted on it.
The Times May 2000 10 No 194
The Times May 2000 11 No 194 Railway timetables of South Australia A partial publishing history of timetables for the South Australian Railways by GEOFF LAMBERT Date Syst em PTT 1-Feb-1886 Jun-Sep 1889 30 3-May-1920 Sub'n PTT Country PTT All lines WTT Ad. Pass Ad. Goods Pt Ad Pen- Gawl B'water Country pass M Bridge Peterborough Mid- Southern 14-Jun-1920 1 118 6-Jun-1922 28-May-1923 10-Dec-1923 10-Nov-1924 10 1-Mar-1925 4-May-1925 127 2-Nov-1925 128 3-May-1926 129 1-Nov-1926 130 16-May-1927 131 1-Aug-1927 132 3-Jan-1928 133 21-May-1928 134 3-Dec-1928 21 135 13-May-1929 136 2-Dec-1929 138 19-May-1930 139 1-Sep-1930 140 15-Jun-1931 142 7-Sep-1931 14-Dec-1931 16-May-1932 145 12-Dec-1932 21 6-Jun-1933 18-Dec-1933 23 146? 1-Jan-1934 5-Nov-1934 148 2-Sep-1935 149 16-Nov-1936 26-Jul-1937 28 151? 20-Dec-1937 151? 6-Jun-1938 152 5-Dec-1938 153 13-Nov-1939 31 154 154 154 154 Aug-1940 26-Oct-1940 28-Jul-1941 156? 4-Aug-1941 4 2 156? 18-Oct-1942 6 17-Jul-1944? 5 2-Jul-1945 159 2-Jun-1947 161 11-Oct-1948 163 9-Jan-1950 6-Feb-1950 166 6-Mar-1950 167 13-Nov-1950 168 2-Apr-1951 12? 23-Jul-1951 169 6-Aug-1951 170 29-Oct-1951 12? 5-May-1952 172 25-Aug-1952 173 14-Oct-1952 174 7-Jun-1953 1-Nov-1953 30-May-1954 177 1-Jan-1956 1-Jan-1957 1-Jul-1957 15-Sep-1957 6-Jul-1958 190 19-Oct-1958 Pt. Linc. 117 143 147 Gen. Inst.
The Times May 2000 12 No 194 Date Syst em PTT 15-Nov-1959 26-Jun-1960 26-Feb-1961 7-May-1961 27-Aug-1961 1-Jan-1962 26-Feb-1962 Sub'n PTT Country PTT All lines WTT Ad. Pass Ad. Goods 202 Pt Ad Pen- Gawl B'water Country pass M Bridge 12-Aug-1962 209 210 212 211 30-Jun-1963 214 215 217 216 11-Nov-1962 19-Apr-1964 219 28-Jun-1964 220 221 222 2-May-1965 225 226 3-Jul-1966 229 232 13-Sep-1966 2-Jul-1967 235 15-Oct-1967 237 3-Nov-1968 242 20-Jul-1969 26-Oct-1969 3-Nov-1968 1-Dec-1968 20-Jul-1969 26-Oct-1969 247 5-Apr-1970 249 5-Jul-1970 4-Jul-1971 252 253 2-Jul-1972 256 1-Jul-1973 259 262 10-Sep-1973 PH1 30-Jun-1974 265 267 2-Sep-1974 PH2 27-Jul-1975 269 271 270 273 272 24-Aug-1975 2-Sep-1975 PH3 25-Jan-1976 269A 26-Jan-1926 PH3 25-Jul-1976 275 2-Sep-1976 PH4 Peterborough Mid- Southern 276 26-Jun-1977 280 282 10-Jul-1977 277 279 278 281 2-Sep-1977 PH5 27-May-1979 3 4 5 2 22-Jun-1980 6 12-Apr-1981 7 4-Jul-1982 11 12-Feb-1984 10 9 8 15 17 20P 22 21 1-May-1988 23? 24 25? 9-Oct-1988 27P 26 9-Jun-1991 37 TOTALS 38 5 3 20 34 11 5 5 4 15 15 20 1 10 5 Public timetables (PTT) appear in the 3 left-most columns, working timetables (WTT) in the others. The division and timetable type applicable appears at the head of the column, thus: Pt. Linc. 274 Gen. Inst. Ad = Adelaide Pass = Passenger Pt Ad = Port Adelaide Pen-Gawl = Penfield/Gawler B'water = Bridgewater M Bridge = Murray Bridge Pt. Linc. = Port Lincoln Gen. Inst. = General Instructions In the table, "" means that the timetable is known to exist. The number appearing with most of the s is the timetable number given to each issue by the SAR or its successors. This was the "edition" number for PTTs, which ran in at least 3 number series: pre 1920, 1920-1940 & post-1940 (when the System PTT was split into Country and Suburban versions). Numbering of PTT issues first appeared on edition No 30 in 1889. PH means Public Holiday timetable. A question mark means the entry is uncertain, or possibly an SAR numbering error. Blanks in the date column indicate an uncertain issue date for known timetable(s). Our table commences at about the time that Webb was appointed as Commissioner and set up the Divisional structure, but there appear to have been nearly 120 Working Time Tables issued before he came on the scene. The editor knows nothing of them, nor of most timetables of the 1990s.
The Times May 2000 13 No 194 A credence of timetable and advertising graphics GRAEME REYNOLDS takes a look at some peculiar modern time tables for the Victoria - South Australia train services. At the height of the Ballarat goldrushes, the merchants of Geelong, who were ever keen to direct any gold seeker or traveller to pass through Geelong to those fields rather than through Melbourne, published a distorted map, which showed Ballarat only slightly north of Geelong and at an exaggerated distance from Melbourne. Perhaps it had some effect and contributed to Geelong's 'pivotonian' history. It is surprising to see that Great Southern Railway (GSR) had in recent times presented a form of the same geographic distortion. The Overland timetable 'effective from 29th July 1998', was probably the last to carry the traditional font and colours used from the days of the Victorian and South Australian (V&SAR) operation of the services. This timetable, which has remained on display in various carriages up to a year later, shows the route heading approximately over the old line via Ballarat. Perhaps this timetable tried to ignore the geography of the Standard Gauge route; a track which not only avoided Ballarat but passed through the northern suburbs of Geelong without any provision for access. It is more likely that the designer of the graphics for the timetable knew no better. Twelve intermediate locations and times were provided. However, none referred to any site between Melbourne and Ararat. This table also showed a time for Balhannah, which might have presented some consternation had a passenger requested to alight or even had the audacity to seek to board there. The distribution of this table might have been very limited. The handout timetable from Spencer Street Railway Station, Melbourne, during late 1998 was invariably a photocopy of a cut and paste version, which had poorly aligned text in a different font and size, and was only distinguished from the earlier version by its rough inclusion of the no operation on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Without graphics, sixteen intermediate times were shown. Two of the more interesting locations mentioned were Manor Loop and Berrybank Loop. The text did not warn that these were not passenger stations. The timetable "from May 1999", which bears the kookaburra emblem, introduced North Shore, Geelong and Dimboola as locations and omitted nine locations from the earlier table. The graphics now show the line heading toward Geelong. On the back of the same timetable is detail for Indian Pacific and The Ghan. The graphic for the Indian Pacific shows The Overland route forming a V arrangement into an unnamed Geelong. The timetable for The Ghan, which travels the line, depicts a line closer to the old Western line than the current North Shore - Maroona route. The March 1999 flier for these two services shows the line on an alignment more likely to be mistaken for the old Western route. General advertising literature: By train on The Overland - four paged A4 - 'from May 1999' replicates the distortion for the Indian Pacific but shows Geelong (North Shore) more accurately. One feature of these pages is the blended four part photograph showing scenes of central Melbourne, Adelaide, a cliff face, probably the Murray River, and The Overland. The picture of the train is somewhat dated- an appearance of a full consist train hauled by 45 and a 930 class engine. At least it shows the heritage of the service, unlike the interior decor of the Kookaburra cars, which feature Commonwealth Railways 1950s artistry of the early diesel era. It is a tangled web to unravel which graphics GSR has inherited and how these are used to portray the corporation. Both Overland timetables discreetly refer to buffet facilities. The May 1999 edition is bolder and mentions the 'delicious hot meals'. Perhaps this is unfortunate, for even on departure from Adelaide, where it might be safely presumed that the train has been resupplied, few if any of the meals listed on the menu in the Kookaburra car, are likely to be available. As few as three meals available for supply amongst an offering of up to 60 sleeping car passengers might appear more than conservative. Others may believe it to be careless, showing little regard for its own advertising. Some might also notice that the Kookaburra cars, refurbished RBJ stock, which still carry internal signage relating to the seats in the former economy area, are used as the first class refreshment carriage. An un-refurbished Club car, formerly for 1st class passengers, is despatched for the economy class passengers. Neither the July 1998 or May 1999 timetables allude to any connections to services other than GSR operations. The V/Line passenger public announcement at Spencer Street, Melbourne endeavours to fulfil part of this. Intending Sydney line passengers from The Overland are directed from Platform No 2 to No. 1. However, the gestures of the CountryLink staff at the latter platform would suggest that they do not have advance information of the number, if any, of passengers expected to transfer to the Sydney line. It would be unfair to consider that this was the responsibility of one company. It is one matter where the corporations risk functioning in a degree of isolation, which had never been contemplated in previous times. Sunshine Railway Station - the junction station for the old Western line and the Standard Gauge to Sydney - a few kilometres from Spencer Street (Melbourne), had a fourth platform provided to allow eastbound Overland passengers to walk across the platform to transfer to the Sydney bound Inter-Capital Daylight Express. An example of the former level of coordination may be gleaned when it is understood that the Sydney platform at Sunshine was used on rare occasions for passengers to alight to meet the waiting, Westbound Overland sitting at the Back Platform Road. Admittedly, it was the Second division.
The Times May 2000 14 No 194 LETTERS Pigeons and other exotica From: Victor Isaacs The January issue of British Railways Illustrated magazine carried a small feature on pigeon traffic on British Railways, where homing pigeons were railed to distant locations where they had to be released by the railway staff to race home. Did this traffic also exist on Australian railways? What other traffics were there that were equally weird? And the editor replies: Indeed, Victor, pigeon traffic was a common one on most Australian railways and birds were still being carried in the 1960s. My Uncle Eric, a Tasmanian pigeon racing champion based at first in Queenstown and later on the northwest, recalled despatching pigeons all over the state, over many years. The Tasmanian Government Railways Appendix to the Book of Rules and to the Working Timetable devoted several pages to the practice, as did most Appendices of last century. Among the instructions were the following: The Department receives considerable revenue for the carriage of homing pigeons and every care and attention must be given to birds and boxes, and both forwarding and receiving stations are equally responsible for correct freight charges being debited The following complaints are often made: (1) In some cases homing pigeons are not carefully handled and liberated (2) They are not given enough ventilation in vans (3) They are left on platforms, open to anyone who may desire to change the birds (4) Empty boxes are not returned promptly (5) Incorrect times are shown on the boxes. Point 3 raises the spectre of a Fine Cotton scandal, an event that was not at all unknown. Pigeons could also be slipped a Mickey Finn and the instructions for watering birds and keeping the boxes sealed against interference were therefore stressed. Also: Homing societies rail homing pigeons for liberation on Sundays. The birds may be liberated by staff on the day provided an employee is listed for duty to attend to trains and does not incur extra time by attending to the pigeons. On the LNER, which also derived considerable revenue from pigeons, employees were given special instructions on how to liberate the birds (WTT Appendix, 1927): In the event of several consignments of birds arriving at the same time, care must be taken not to liberate birds going in different directions simultaneously, one set of birds must be out of sight before another is liberated. birds overcarried must be returned to their proper point of destination before liberation. Many untrained birds are lost through being liberated at unreasonable distances, especially young birds during the months of July, August and September. Guards must not allow dogs or cats to be taken into the van in which birds are conveyed. Discretion should also be used in holding birds over until the following morning when they arrive late in the day and could not reasonably be expected to reach home in daylight. Obviously LNER staff were expected to be no mere cage-openers, but pigeon racing experts. On the Great Western Railways, the General Appendix said so: If any of the staff are interested in pigeon flying, obviously such men are most suited to the purpose. Other traffic that might perhaps be classed as exotic includes commercial travellers samples, day-old chicks, lepers, mental cases, pianos in Box Wagons and corpses. The stories associated with the carriage of the latter are legion, and a number of them may be found in Patsy Adam Smith s book, The Folklore of the Australian Railwaymen. Special Instructions for all of these existed in the Queensland Railway General Appendix of 1950.
The Times May 2000 15 No 194 Perhaps one of the most unusual traffics was houses. Several instances of the use of trains to convey intact houses are known from Australian railway history and records of it crop up from time to time from railways all over the world. Illustrated in the rather tatty picture on this page is one such event that took place on the Heathcote line in Victoria in 1961. Taxi-bus services From: Steven G Haby 21 March 2000 Dear Geoff, I read with interest the article on the Ambarvale taxi-bus service by Robert Henderson (The Times, vol.17 n.3 March 2000). I wish to draw readers' attention to a similar service which operated in the late 1980s on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. The route operated between the towns of Hastings and Mornington via West Park Estate and Moorooduc, which essentially was a 'cross country' service. Referring to the timetable from my collection, dated 19/10/1987, it operated basically as a shoppers' service with departures ex Hastings at 0945, 1045, 1145 and 1340 with the trip taking 20 minutes to Mornington. Return trips ex Mornington were at 1015, 1115, 1215 and 1400 with a 'short' working ex West Park Estate to Hastings departing the former at 0932 arriving at Hastings at 0935. The service operated weekdays only. The service was operated for the Metropolitan Transit Authority by the Victorian Taxi Association which contracted it to Sandown Taxis. Vehicles were identified with a MTA logo on the side; no route number was ever allocated and the service was known as 'Taxi Transit'. There were a number of interesting operating features with this service: MTA tickets were valid (and sold) on the taxi; the timetable stated that another taxi would be made available by the driver if all seats were full; and passengers were advised to 'assist the driver, please advise of your intended trip home'. The service lasted only a few years, but interestingly a new bus route along pretty much the same route was introduced from 10/3/1998. Initially introduced as a trial service, the service has proved reasonably successfully and three return trips are operated Monday - Friday. The service is operated for the PTC by Peninsula Bus Lines and the route is allocated route number 786. References Peninsula Bus Lines (PTC). 786 Hastings - Mornington bus timetable. Dated 10/3/1998 Victorian Taxi Association (MTA). Taxi transit : Hastings - Mornington timetable. Dated 19/10/1987
The Times May 2000 16 No 194 Graphic Insight By CHRIS BROWNBILL Graphic Insight this month investigates the change in journey duration and transport mode in rural NSW over the past thirty-four years. We do this by contrasting the service from Sydney to two selected towns as described in the NSWGR country timetable of October 17th 1965 and the Countrylink timetable of 1 April to 30 June 1999. The graph below illustrates the advertised journeys in 1965 and in 1999 from Sydney to the towns of Baradine in Northern NSW, and Griffith in South Western NSW. Each advertised journey is depicted by one vertical stacked bar. The height of each bar represents the journey time from Sydney - the vertical scale is in minutes. The segments of each bar represent the components of the journey, i.e. where it is or was necessary to change vehicles en-route, a separate segment is shown for each vehicle. Waiting time is shown as a black segment. The names of the trains and intermediate stations are marked on or alongside the bars. The graph clearly shows the speeding up of services of the years. Every service in 1999 is faster than every 1965 service to the same destination by a significant amount. Services reach Baradine in 1999 in half the time that they took in 1965, whilst even the slowest 1999 service to Griffith (the Weekly Griffith train) is more than 2 hours faster than the fastest service of 1965 (The Riverina Express). The significant replacement of branch line rail services by road bus services is also reflected in the graph with three of the 4 services in 1999 involving a train to bus connection. Whereas there were no buses operated by NSWGR on these routes in 1965. The length of the waiting times has also been reduced; the long waits at Werris Creek, Binnaway and Coonabarabran on the way to Baradine in 1965 are no longer in evidence in 1999. Finally, whilst Baradine in 1999 receives a simpler service involving a single change from train to bus at Lithgow, Griffith in 1965 had a range of direct services whereas in 1999 the primary service involves a change to a bus at Junee or Cootamundra. Of course it was in 1999 (and is still today) possible to travel direct Sydney to Griffith by train without changing although this is only a once weekly service. 1100 1000 Baradine Baradine 900 Coonabarabran Griffith Griffith 800 700 B/way Binnaway Griffith Griffith 600 500 400 WCk WCk Baradine Griffith Griffith Bus Griffith Bus South Mail South Mail 300 Bus WGA Coota 200 100 0 North Mail North Mail C West PT L'gow Melbourne PT Melbourne PT 17/10/65 Baradine - North Mail via Werris Creek 17/10/65 Baradine - North Mail via Werris Creek 1/04/99 Baradine - Central West PT via Lithgow 1/04/99 Griffith - Griffith Train 1/04/99 Griffith - Melbourne PT - change at Wagga 1/04/99 Griffith - Melbourne PT - change at Cootamundra 17/10/65 Griffith - Riverina Express 17/10/65 Griffith - Riverina Express - change at Junee 17/10/65 Griffith - South Mail via Junee 17/10/65 Griffith - South Mail via Temora